


greng-jai

by loupettes



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Domestic, Established Relationship, F/M, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, One-Sided Attraction, Or not quite, Romance, Unrequited Love, depends who you ask
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:55:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28408872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loupettes/pseuds/loupettes
Summary: “It’s just that,” she stopped in another moment of hesitation. One last chance to turn back and keep things agreeable between them. Why was she so prepared to suggest something she knew, without a doubt, would change their relationship for the worse? But, against her better judgement, there was something deeper inside her that seemed to pilot her actions above her own reason. “This all feels... well, not far off a relationship.”Ten x Rose, angst. Rose's frustration with not knowing where she stands with the Doctor finally prompts her to ask him following a weekend with her family. As predicted, it was a mistake.
Relationships: Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Comments: 32
Kudos: 61





	1. Part one

**Author's Note:**

> I have to give credit to [crimefightingpigeons over on tumblr](https://crimefightingpigeons.tumblr.com) for finally prompting me to finish this one, as it's been sitting in my drafts for weeks.

“She’s never gonna stop kissing me, is she?” He waited until they were out of Jackie’s earshot before he muttered his complaint to Rose.

Rose giggled and went to hold out her hand for him, but his had already slipped into it. “I don’t think so, no. But, and on the positive side, all those aliens that have it in for you now have to go through my mum first.”

“Good luck to them, then.”

Once they’d reached the ground floor and entered the open space, Rose smiled at the gentle warmth of the low sun she was greeted by. It had been quite a nice day, for a change. But then again, Rose always liked November. It was a bit chilly, and the evening had begun to settle its cool blanket of frost over the ground, but the sky remained unburdened and the sun was still yet just able to reach them.

Rose felt like she was slowly coming down from a blissful high. The buzz of seeing family for the first time in almost a year was a welcome change; normally she’d remain indifferent to family gatherings, they were just a part of life that she was never particularly excited about nor dreaded. But whether it was the constant uncertainty of a life guaranteed travelling with the Doctor, or just generally missing them, or even the fact that he’d accompanied her, she’d had a nice weekend. Here, as they walked back to the TARDIS parked no more than a ten-minute walk away, their strides were gentle and slow, both appreciative of the weather and the calm following a busy few days.

“Thanks for this weekend,” Rose chirped. “I know a christening with a load of family isn’t your idea of fun.”

He cleared his throat, a quiet whimper of restraint escaped it. “It’s not… _not_ fun.”

She scoffed. “Can you go back in time and tell the you that was playing _My Little Pony_ dress up with my 3-year-old cousin that it’s 'not _not_ fun'?”

“No, no I don’t think I want to relive that.”

 _She_ did. She giggled at the memory of him sitting cross-legged on the floor with her cousin, being instructed to brush the purple pony’s hair and he taking his orders very seriously. The look of helplessness on his face had made her feel for the briefest of moments guilty, but then again, it was hard to feel _that_ guilty when her cousin treated him to a new hairstyle complete with pink ribbons that was particularly dashing on the man.

They reached the corner of the park and Rose instinctively veered left, but felt the pull on her hand as the Doctor began to turn right. She let go of his hand.

“We’re this way?”

“No, it’s this way?”

“We parked on Sullivan road?”

“Yes, which is this way?”

She chuckled, stepping towards him to take back his hand. “Which is _this_ way.”

He looked from left to right, confused. He deliberated it for a moment before he shook his head and let her lead him left. “I could have sworn it was that way.”

“I grew up on this estate Doctor, I know it’s this way. C’mon.”

The estate seemed different to her now somehow. She’d spent years of her life here, playing hide and seek in this park especially. She remembered hiding in the bush over there multiple times from her friends, and she was particularly good at climbing that tree and camouflaging herself well enough to win. Nobody had ever found her in that tree. Not even the time she fell out of it and twisted her ankle. She flinched at the memory, bringing her back to the current day where she spotted out of the corner of her eye that the Doctor smiling.

“What are you smiling at?”

“Nothing!” But his smile only grew. “I was just imagining little Rose running about this park, causing havoc and making a name for herself.”

“Oh, you bet I was. Right over there’s where we was shouted at by Mrs Davies for nicking her bin.”

“What’d you nick a _bin_ for?”

“She used to shout at us for playing ball games so close to her garden. Pissed us off, so we nicked her bin.”

“But why the _bin_?”

“It’s annoying, in’t it?” Rose shrugged. “Where’d you put all your rubbish? Bin men won’t take them unless they’re in the bin.”

“Punishment fits the crime,” he surmised. “No further questions from me.”

“Actually had my first kiss right over there,” she said, only realising after she’d said it who she’d said it to. She shook her head and told herself it was the Doctor, her best mate, and it was ok. You talk about first kisses with your best friend.

“With the bin in hand or after you’d returned it?”

She slapped his arm, but he only laughed in response. She couldn’t quite work him out these days - well, any day really, but especially these last few weeks. He’d been less chaotic somehow, constantly wearing a smile, be it small or full of glee. He was content. That’s what he was. Even at the mention of a christening, an entire weekend spent with Rose’s family didn’t make him recoil in disgust. He’d rolled his eyes and played his part, but that’s all it was. An act.

“Why did you come?” she asked nervously.

“Where?”

“To this christening.”

“Because you asked me to?”

“Since when has that ever stopped you?”

“You’re welcome,” he muttered, but the grin teasing his lips relieved her tension.

And then it only confused her even more. She could drop it now, or just go for it. If she dared admit it to herself, he was acting like… almost as though…

She sighed. She couldn’t even entertain the thought of him of him actually being interested in a relationship. He had told her before that ‘them’ wasn’t going to happen, and to be fair to him, she did understand why. And she was happy to put that to the side and just enjoy his company. But she was getting bloody confused these days with the way he’d been acting, almost as though he’d changed his mind. The frustration fuelled her courage. “It’s just that, you never used to. Whenever I’d go home to see mum or whatever, you’d hang about in the TARDIS and wait for me to be done.”

He paused, thinking. “Didn’t think you liked me doing that?”

“Well, I’m just saying, I don’t want you to come along to things you don’t want to just because I ask you to.”

Again, another pause. A longer one this time, she could see him watching her in her peripheral vision. She kept her eyes ahead as though she wasn’t aware of how her words were teasing at a deeper conversation.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah? Why?”

“You seem not alright.”

The exchange could go one of two ways. She could, if she wanted to, really pull her act together and tell him nothing’s wrong. She’d just been thinking and was honestly worried he was going along with things he didn’t want to just to make her happy. He’d shrug and say it was alright in the end and he didn’t mind it, but he promises if it's something he genuinely didn’t want to do then he wouldn't do it. It would reassure her, and they’d reach the TARDIS and decide there and then what the plans were for the evening, maybe even make a bit of a plan for tomorrow.

Or she could pursue the thread she’d begun tugging at since she started talking. It was a horrible feeling, one that near drowned her in dread, but the water level had risen almost entirely, taking up her every thought and action and she just needed to be able to _breathe._

“It’s just that,” she stopped in another moment of hesitation. One last chance to turn back and keep things agreeable between them. Why was she so prepared to suggest something she knew, without a doubt, would change their relationship for the worse? But, against her better judgement, there was something deeper inside her that seemed to pilot her actions above her own reason. “This all feels... well, not far off a relationship.”

His fingers loosened under hers and she could feel his edging to escape. It took everything she had to keep herself from stopping still in her tracks, dropping his hand out of embarrassment and screaming for her to take the words back. 

“What are you saying?” His voice was affectless; she knew she didn't need to answer that question.

“Nothing, I didn’t mean anything by it, it was just-”

He dropped her hand and stopped, and she winced at the loss of his touch. She stopped a few steps ahead of him, too nervous to turn round for fear that the face looking back at her wouldn’t be her Doctor’s. Not in the way he normally looks at her, and now most likely wouldn’t look that way again.

She had to go and ruin it. For whatever reason, he’d opened up a bit since that dreadful night outside the cafe all those months ago. She wasn’t sure at what point her room had become their room, or at what point kissing her hands or her neck or her forehead had become normal for him, but it had and she hadn't wanted it to end.

But that was before. Now, though, she could feel she’d put a stop to all that and was back to square one.

She turned slowly to look at him - she would have to one way or another. She knew her face was completely clouded in remorse, and she needn’t worry that he’d know just how sorry she was for bringing it up. She fully expected to see his all-too-familiar cold exterior, his hardened features of frustration as he stared at the floor to avoid her gaze. But her heart stopped when she found he was looking directly back at her with an expression she was in no way expecting. Not anger, not irritation. It was almost sort of…

She narrowed her gaze to read him better, but as soon as she did his expression broke and she saw his jaw tighten and his eyes roll in frustration that she’d been expecting. She responded automatically to it.

“I’m sorry. Really - “

“- Rose, you know how I feel about this,” he snapped, two strides forward and he was ahead of her already. “And I don’t know why you’re asking. I thought I’d made it clear to you that it’s not going to happen. Me coming with you to your cousin’s christening doesn’t mean _anything_.”

She wanted to be anywhere other than here. She felt mortified, but she tried her best to get things back. “Look, I know, alright? Friends. That’s all I see us as, and I don’t want anything more than that, ok? Like you said, you made it clear, and so I’m clearing things up on my end, too.”

“Good. Glad we’re on the same page.”

"Right. We are."

His tone pissed her off. She wouldn’t have minded; except he _hadn’t_ been making it clear. And now she was being made to feel like _she_ was wrong for misinterpreting _his_ actions! How was she supposed to know for certain that waking up in the morning to a sleepy kiss or two was entirely platonic? Holding hands as they walked down the street was something he did with _everybody_ he walked down the street with. Their hugs had _always_ been that long, and had always been for no reason whatsoever. She stuffed her hands in her coat pockets and clenched her fists in her refrain from saying something else she knew she'd later regret.

They spent the next few minutes finding the TARDIS in a silence the started off uncomfortable but had quickly been filled on her end by an irritation so loud she felt like screaming. He unlocked the door and she chucked her backpack down on the ground and left the control room without so much as a ‘see you later’ on her way out.

She grabbed a pair of fresh towels from the laundry room and stormed to her own bedroom, closing the bathroom door and locking it behind her - again, why did they not lock the bathroom door if they were only friends? How has he got it into his densely cultured and somehow _still incredibly stupid_ time lord brain that walking in on her when she’s _showering_ to grab whatever useless thing needed grain in such timely manner that he couldn’t wait for her to _finish using the shower_ was just habitual in the realm of friendship? She yanked her clothes off in annoyance, her skin itching to be released of the burning tension inside.

She was _furious_. She turned the shower on as hot as she knew she could stand, about to tie her hair up out of the way before she realised she just wanted to scrub every single memory of this day from her body, so she reached for her shampoo and stepped into the shower.

The sting of the hot water was such a blissful welcome and she let it out-scream whatever chaos was taking place beneath her skin. After a few moments, she was able to breathe without wanting to shriek in anger, and after only a few moments more, she choked out a sob. Out of embarrassment, or of grief, or just the only way her body knew what to do with her emotions right now, she didn’t know. But she let the tears fall unrestrained, allowing her tears to export her inner pain to be quickly washed away by fresh water. She reached for the shampoo bottle and paid extra attention to her hand’s movements in lathering her hair with care and precision, working her fingers behind her ears and into every inch of her scalp, relaxing and soothing motions to bring her back to a place where her breathing alone could keep her upright. She let herself enjoy the warmth of the shower just a little bit longer than she usually would, mostly until she knew for certain she wouldn’t start crying when the water turned off, and then stepped out dry herself off.

She opened the cabinet and found a lotion she rarely used, one she kept as a treat for if she was having a particularly bad day. _This counts, wouldn’t you say?_ she thought to herself bitterly, before mentally scorning herself for continuing to be negative and passive-aggressive. Those thoughts wouldn’t help her in the long run. She grabbed her dressing gown and perched herself on the edge of the bath, running the lotion into her legs that were in desperate need of a shave. Tomorrow, she told herself. Tonight was a night where she was going to get straight into bed, the Doctor surely had enough sense to not think to join her as usual, and read some magazines, maybe do her nails. Or maybe just sleep and deal with it all tomorrow.

She put the lotion away and opened the door, shrieking in surprise when she spotted the Doctor sitting in the middle of her bed.

“Christ, you scared me.,” she huffed, tugging her dressing gown around her tighter, and she was pissed off to realise that beautiful night she had planned only seconds ago now out of reach. She flicked through her not so extensive vocabulary in search for the nicest and friendliest “ _fuck off and leave me alone_ ” she could find, before she spotted his face.

That expression again. Now she was able to see it a little clearer, she confirmed it for certain.

Heartbroken.

She drew her brow, her surprise silencing her. She searched for something to say, but his lips parted in search of his own words and she waited. She could feel her heartbeat in her ears, her fingers beginning to prickle and she wanted to sit down, or at least lean against something because the anticipation was unbearable.

He didn’t look at her when he started to speak. “It’s my fault. I..." he paused before finishing. She watched him helplessly, wanting to hear what he had to say but also wanting to comfort whatever pain he was evidently and unexpectedly feeling.

"I got it wrong.”

Her breath caught in her throat and she swallowed it down to start afresh. “Got what wrong?”

His gaze remained still for a moment until his shoulders drew back and he mustered up the strength to look up at her. His eyes were tired, pained, and she realised she didn’t think she’d ever seen him vulnerable. Scared, yes. Nervous, sometimes. But she was taken aback by how attuned she felt to his most honest self in this moment. She must have been looking back at him encouragingly, because he took a moment to reassure himself that he could say what he was about to.

“I thought we _were_ in a relationship.”


	2. Part two

_“What?”_

The word escaped her throat so fast in a choke so strained that she only realised how bad it sounded when she saw his eyes widen.

“No - wait - I didn’t- “

“-never mind- “

“-no, Doctor- “

“-let’s just forget it- “

“-no we have to- “

“-I shouldn’t have- “

 _“-Doctor!”_ she snapped, her voice slicing through the blockage between and he stopped dead in his tracks, awkwardly hovering over the edge of the bed as he daren’t fully stand up nor relax back down onto it. Her breathing was ragged, choking over the pressure of her heart's fight to keep her in place. She watched him closely, unmoving as was his gaze with hers in return. They both tried to gauge the other’s thoughts, and Rose huffed in its futility. 

“What do you _mean_ you thought we were _already in a relationship_?” 

He winced at the forcefulness of her words. “Like I said, I obviously got it wrong.”

“What - _how_ , what - I don’t..." She pinched the bridge of her nose and huffed, clearly not quite ready to form sentences. She tried to quieten her thoughts to at least decide on one question _of many_ to prioritise and ask him first. What the hell did he mean? Since when? Why did he tell her differently earlier? Why is he being so damn confusing? What did he get wrong? Did he - was he - _what?_ She released her nose and opened her eyes to meet his, wide with concern and, in large part, sorrow. She shook her head slowly in disbelief, and he lowered his gaze. He slipped back down to sit in on her bed and breathed in deeply. 

They remained in silence for a few moments: Rose trying to figure out what on Earth was happening, while the Doctor nervously traced the floral pattern of her bedsheets. 

She decided to let the words roll off her tongue rather than _plan_ them, since it had apparently all gone to shit anyway. “You _said._ Earlier. You said we were… we were on the same page.” She recounted the conversation, her body starting to tingle in frustration at the memory of his anger. “You said we were _‘never going to happen’,_ and now you tell me you thought we _were?”_

He released his breath slowly, his nervousness evident in its tremble. “Rose, I don’t _do_ this.”

“Don't do _what?”_

“This!” He gestured to them, then around him at her room. “Sleeping next to somebody every night, sharing a room- “

“ _-exactly!_ So you’re only sending me mixed signals when you _do_ do them!”

“I mean I don’t do this with _everyone_! The hand-holding and the hugging and the _kissing -_ for God’s sake, Rose, I _kiss_ you! I don’t do this sort of stuff with just anyone!” He was focusing on his words she could tell, because he was having a hard time finding them. She watched him in silence as he searched the floor for them, before shaking his head and looking at her helplessly. “I thought you knew that?”

It was like she was hearing what he was saying but it was so ridiculous she couldn’t take what he was saying to be believable. 

“I..." she croaked, and he continued to watch her. It was making her nervous, she couldn’t think straight. She certainly wouldn’t have thought he did all those sorts of things with just anyone, no. She knew those things he did only with her. But she didn’t think for a moment he was even remotely interested in romantic relationships. “I didn’t,” she finished awkwardly. 

His expression was so strange to her. She could see that it was broken, she knew by the way his eyes carried a heaviness behind them too overbearing, the way his entire physique had relaxed in his despair, but she didn’t understand it. 

“Do you do all that stuff with all your other friends?” He asked cautiously, and she detected the apprehension in his voice.

“No, of course not.” 

“Well... then, what did _you_ think this was?”

She blinked; he seemed more alien to her now than ever. She knew this man. Knew him like the back of her hand. She probably knew the back of _his_ hand better than she knew that back of her own. But she could feel a shift in her understanding of reality, and she wasn’t quite following where it was taking her. She tried to put herself in his shoes because he seemed to be suggesting he was the one thinking _she_ was less advanced in the stages of their relationship. Which made absolutely no sense. 

“But you were angry!” she finally said, trying to align whatever he was saying now with her understanding of the conversation earlier. “You snapped and said we’d been over this. And now you’re…”

He waited patiently for her to finish, his shoulders slumping in sympathy when he saw that she couldn’t. She felt the distance between them now especially; seeing him look at her with concern and not have him scrambling over to her was so foreign now. 

He spoke slowly, nervously. “Rose, you said it was like we weren’t _far off_ a relationship.”

“We weren’t!”

“Yes, well. You know that, to me, it _already was_ a relationship. This, to me… I thought we’d…” She could see his frustration with himself, that every time he spoke, he was angry at himself for misunderstanding. She still wasn’t even sure what it was he’d got wrong. He _knew_ how she felt, so why was he so nervous?

Unless he _didn’t_ know.

Mad. No way, couldn’t possibly have not known. She was so obvious with the way she felt. She thought back over the last few weeks. She considered all of her actions, and how he might have interpreted them. Considering she _didn’t_ think they were in a relationship; he’d have to be a completely useless nutter to think they were just platonic signs of affection. There was that one morning a couple of weeks ago when he made her breakfast, and she braved her thank-you in the form of a kiss on his cheek. It was daring for her, and she remembered it clearly, especially because it had confused her how he had barely acknowledged it as being out of the ordinary himself. To her, that was so far off platonic she near screamed at his indifference towards her bravery. But then, was he saying now that perhaps the reason he didn’t think it was out of the ordinary was because he thought they were _together?_

Hold on. She tried to extract another memory of note where her actions may have caused him to think she believed they were in a relationship, too. Every kiss she gave him, every gesture she had made, like when she combed through his hair after he’d just gotten out of the shower, or how she intimately ran her fingers down his back when he was fixing whatever gizmo or gadget in the TARDIS, all had been an imitation of the kinds of displays of affection _he’d_ been giving _her_. She only felt like she could kiss his cheek because she remembered the first time _he’d_ kissed _her_ cheek, she only felt like she could run her fingers through his wet hair because that’s what he did to _her_ , running her fingers down his back was only encouraged by the way he’d trace his along hers when she was falling asleep next to him. He had _always_ set the pace of their relationship, defining it and she only ever kept to what he was comfortable with. If he had learnt to become more comfortable with kissing, then she was by all means fine with that. More than fine, but she would have never done something unless she knew he’d be comfortable with it, too. 

It was only when her eyes finally settled back on his in her search for the truth did she understand. She was only echoing his physical affections because she felt like he was letting her, whereas he thought she was returning them wholly because she thought they were now together, too.

He continued to watch her. “When you said it was _almost_ as though we were in a relationship, I didn’t understand.”

“Because you thought we already were,” she mused out loud. 

He nodded slowly. “But I was wrong?”

Her eyes narrowed as the truth was starting to untangle itself, and she fell to perch herself on the edge of the bed next to him. It was only in doing so did it further fuel his version of the truth, because she was shocked to _not_ feel his hand reach for her leg. “So you, what, backtracked when you thought you were?”

“I _was,_ ” he corrected. “Rose, if you didn’t see _this_ as a relationship, then we’re… quite clearly on different pages.”

“You - I, what, how can you think - " She swallowed her stutter, taking a moment to refresh herself and keep her words coherent. "I mean, even if I didn’t see this as a relationship already, surely you must know that’s what I want, too?”

His brow drew together in confusion, and hers did in response to his. “What! _You_ said you just wanted to be friends!”

She yanked herself back up off the bed in disbelief, hitting the wall behind her as she did. “ _When_?”

“Earlier! You said you only saw us as friends and that’s all you wanted!”

She scoffed incredulously. “I was obviously saying that because _you_ freaked out and snapped back at me for daring to suggest we might be closing in on a relationship!”

“Because _you_ had just proven to me that I was alone in thinking that we already were!” 

“But I didn’t know that’s how you saw it! I thought you were just relaxing your boundaries, how the hell was I supposed to know you’d changed your mind?”

 _“Changed my mind?”_ he stressed; his eyebrows raised in utter bewilderment. “What are you on about?”

“Outside the cafe! All those months ago, you said! Curse of the time lords, wither and die and all that! Do you not _remember_?”

“Of _course_ I remember, but that was _then!_ I thought you knew things were different now!”

Her hands snapped to her temples as she tried to grasp his absurd claim. “ _How?_ How could I have _possibly_ known things were different? And _why_ are they different? _Since when have they been different_?”

“Since I almost lost you on that parallel world! Or since I lost your face, or since I almost bloody lost you for good on that bloody planet!”

She scrunched her eyes shut, pressing the pads of her fingers onto her eyelids in an incomprehensible and demanding frustration. “You didn’t think to _tell me_ you’d changed your mind?”

“I didn’t think it needed saying!”

She let the words ring around her before her hands finally slid down her face, meeting at a point under her chin where she rested her head in deliberation. It was a lot to process, to learn that she had in fact been in a relationship with a man she’d been wanting to be in a relationship with for quite some time now. He really was bloody impossible to keep up with. Her fingers curled and her chin fell down to rest on top of them, now able to open her eyes and see the Doctor below. He was still sitting at the end of the bed, his elbows resting on his thighs and his head in his hands. 

“I tried not to question it too much,” he spoke, finally. “You, I mean. Why you’d _want_ to be with me.”

She chewed her bottom lip as she thought. “I thought I’d made it clear outside the cafe that I did?”

“Yes, well. That was before I told you that we couldn’t be, and before I left you on a spaceship somewhere in the 51st century. Before I bloody drove your boyfriend away to another _universe_.”

She'd never felt their dynamic this way, that perhaps he had felt _undeserving_ rather than unwanting of her love. She tried to joke, anything to relieve the pressure of the atmosphere they'd created since they'd started talking. “Well, when you put it like that, why _do_ I want to be with you?”

He raised his hands and gestured to his point being proven. She giggled, and only then did he finally chuckle too and then she _saw_ him again, _her_ Doctor, her best friend. Same now as he was this morning, only different somehow. It was like she’d finally got that last piece of him that would enable her to see him clearly. He looked up at her fondly, a boyish charm about his ancient character, and she reached for his head, scratching his hair as it stood at the perfect height at her waist. 

“You’re a daft fool, you know that?”

“I think you can award yourself a little credit for this one, too.”

She leaned down to place a kiss on his head, hearing his content hum in reply. 

“I can’t believe you let me go to your cousin’s christening like it was just another normal Saturday."

"You know as well as I do that there's no such thing as normal with you."

"I think I’m now your cousin’s _godfather_.”

She laughed. “You are, yes.”

“Thought so,” he chuckled, tugging gently on the tie of her dressing gown to bring her closer to him. Her cheeks flushed as she considered he might loosen it entirely, exposing her skin and freely exploring it with his hands. She winced at her earlier decision to _not_ shave. She dared herself to gently fall down onto his lap, slipping her legs either side of him and thankful yet for her earlier decision to use that lotion when his fingers began to effortlessly skate up her thighs. 

“You never kissed me," she pointed out, her final argument before she was to admit defeat. His eyes darkened and her gaze drew to his lips, transfixed by the way his tongue slid out to moisten them and she was faintly aware hers was doing the same.

“ _You_ never kissed _me_.” 

The murmur of his voice, the hunger in it sent an actual shiver down her spine, her body involuntarily flinching. The touch of his fingers burned her skin below them, she imagined he could only feel the tiny goosebumps flourishing in the wake of their path. She decided not to entertain that grin of his, the one that was telling her he knew exactly what he was doing.

“I think,” she breathed, as his head slowly dipped to kiss her collar bone, “we could have avoided this whole situation if we’d just been explicit.” She tried not to lose focus on her words, which was a momentous task when his kisses became so soft and gentle that she couldn’t be certain he wasn’t slowly tracing the path up to her lips solely with the tip of his tongue. 

“So if I’m hearing you right, you’re saying you think we need to be clearer with each other in the future?” 

“Mmm,” she moaned, and she’d be angrier with his seeming lack of difficulty in maintaining coherent speech if he wasn’t now delicately peppering her jaw with his deliberate kisses. Her hands slipped up from his neck and to his hair instinctively, grasping onto it for additional support the closer his lips got to hers, clenching and unclenching fists of his hair with every breath in and out. She felt his hands begin to itch upwards, dipping under her dressing gown and softly grazing their way up to her waist where they lay still, holding her in place, his thumbs brushing the dip of her hips and there was so much of him that she could feel _everywhere,_ all over her skin, all of her senses receptive only to his touch.

He paused when his lips met hers, hovering just above them and she was growing increasingly more frustrated at his calm and steady breathing contrasting embarrassingly against hers, shallow and needing. “One question.”

“What?” she breathed impatiently.

“Do you need me to tell you how much I want you, or are happy for me to just show you?”

“Show me,” she affirmed, if not the only thing she was certain of tonight by far. “Definitely can just show me.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been wanting to adapt one of the many ways I interpret his “ _we were together_ ” response in 3.01, whereby, in his mind, they were. The idea that he thought of themselves as in a relationship and didn't consider that she might not have until their goodbye on BWB. When he tells Martha they were together, it’s his way of dealing with the added torment of knowing she didn't know what their relationship meant to him, or what she meant to him, all because he never explicitly said. If he can tell Martha and everybody who asks that they were in a relationship, it’s as good as he’s going to get now that he’s lost her and can’t tell her himself.
> 
> Anyway, those of you who have found this fic via my Tumblr would have heard my many months of Ten ramblings this year and know how I feel about Ten and his hopeless love for Rose, so I'll stop there. Happy New Year to you all!

**Author's Note:**

> Requests and prompts welcome @ [loupettes](https://loupettes.tumblr.com/submit)


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